Hypocrisy and Hyperbole

By Bryan Caplan

The right answer: It depends on the details of the speakers’ moral position! Consider the following cases.

1. You say, “It is always morally wrong to eat meat,” but you still eat meat. Are you a hypocrite? Of course, because you break your own absolute rule.

2. You say, “We have a duty not to eat meat, except in extreme circumstances,” but you still eat meat Are you a hypocrite? Almost certainly, because we’re rarely in extreme circumstances.

3. You say, “Eating meat is very bad,” but you still eat meat. Are you a hypocrite? Probably. Yes, you could believe there are important offsetting moral factors that justify your meat consumption despite its badness. But if you thought these offsetting factors were important, you probably would have discussed them. And if you think these offsetting factors are unimportant, what are the odds that they just-so-happen to excuse your meat consumption?

4. You say, “We should eat less meat,” but you still eat meat. Are you a hypocrite? Perhaps. If your meat consumption is low or at least falling, your behavior is plausibly consistent with your principle. Otherwise, not.

5. You say, “Government should discourage meat consumption,” but still eat meat. You don’t say anything resembling #1-#4. Are you a hypocrite? Probably not – unless you’re a powerful politician who ignores the issue.

So how hypocritical are people, really? Exceedingly so. Why? Because humans love hyperbole. When they moralize, they gravitate toward strong versions of their moral positions. They don’t like to say, “Well, government should raise taxes on the rich; but until that day, the rich are doing nothing morally wrong.” Neither do they like to say, “The rich should give 13% more money to charity.” These positions aren’t fun.

Instead, people like to say things like, “It’s a crime for billionaires to exist in a world with hunger” or “The rich are nothing but a bunch of bloodsucking parasites.” And when you make such extreme statements, you routinely end up condemning yourself as well – at least by extension. After all, if it’s a crime for billionaires to exist in a world with hunger, why isn’t it also a crime for millionaires? For single adults who make $30k a year? Moralizing with hyperbole is like a detonating a massive moral bomb; unless you’re careful, you end up in your own blast radius.

Which brings us back to my initial questions.

1. Am I a hypocrite? No, because I avoid hyperbole. I don’t claim that anyone who teaches at a public university is a wrong-doer, evil, etc. What I do claim is that (a) taxpayer support for education is extremely wasteful, and (b) politicians and their subordinates who forcibly extract that support have a moral duty to stop.

3. Are vegetarians who eat meat hypocrites? Usually. The modest vegetarians who eat meat once a month and say, “I’m just trying to help reduce animal suffering a little bit” are in the clear. But any vegetarian who eats meat after claiming that “Meat is murder” – or even “Animal pain is just as morally important as human pain” is indeed a hypocrite.

READER COMMENTS

Dylan

Mar 11 2019 at 11:00am

I’m with Emerson when it comes to consistency; I think those of us with a more rational bent put too much emphasis on it, and I don’t think that being a hypocrite is the mortal sin that others make it out to be.

With that out of the way though, I don’t think that claiming meat is murder while still consuming meat occasionally is all that hypocritical. If I was an ethical vegetarian I’d think my chief concern would be to not contribute to a demand for meat. So I’d choose to not buy meat and generally let friends know I was a vegetarian so they would not buy meat on my behalf. Maybe I’d advocate for others to take up a meatless diet as well (this is borderline, because if done badly it may backfire). Yet if I’m in a situation where my consuming meat doesn’t really contribute to excess demand in anyway, then sure, maybe I’ll have some meat. Say you’re traveling outside your country and get invited to a local’s home for dinner, and what they serve is all meat. I think you’re kind of a jerk if you turn up your nose at that time and say meat is murder I can’t eat this. And this probably makes me hypocritical, since I could apply the same argument to dead babies, but would have a hard time eating those just to be polite…

Mark Z

Mar 11 2019 at 3:38pm

I think actually having consistent morals is very important, however imperfectly one manages to apply them; I would agree that we shouldn’t be overly punitive toward hypocrisy. I think I’d rather people be self-aware hypocrites than constantly twist their morals in their mind to fit their impulses.

J. Goard

Mar 13 2019 at 12:36am

Furthermore, even the vast majority of strict ethical vegans would be caught under too broad a conception of hypocrisy, because they say things like:

“Hey guys, if you’re interested in the vegan lifestyle, why not give it a try for 22 days and see if it may be right for you?”

Which is an absurd way of talking to people who are directly complicit in murder on a daily basis.

I guess I have enough of the consequentialist in me to have no problem admitting that I’m far from morally ideal, nor likely to make a sweeping change in that regard. Morality is one factor governing my behavior, in a complex interaction. I do believe, for example, that a morally ideal diet would be vegan, and this leads me to eat perhaps a third the animal products of the average American or Korean, and I readily acknowledge that I might (note: not “will”) become vegan if I move to a U.S. city, but find it just too inconvenient in Korea with respect to eating out and visiting friends.

Why would I qualify for the label “hypocrite” only with regard to veganism? It’s also obvious that giving something to highly effective charities (e.g. anti-malaria) would be morally better than what I do, which is giving relatively little, and to groups that I personally like, who help people I like, at a level far lower than life-or-death.

Aleksander

Mar 11 2019 at 7:41pm

if I’m in a situation where my consuming meat doesn’t really contribute to excess demand in anyway, then sure, maybe I’ll have some meat. Say you’re traveling outside your country and get invited to a local’s home for dinner, and what they serve is all meat. I think you’re kind of a jerk if you turn up your nose at that time and say meat is murder I can’t eat this.

You might or might not be a jerk, but you’re clearly contributing to excess demand for meat. Apart from the fact that the locals are very likely to restock on meat to make up for the amount you ate (why would they eat less in total just because of you visit?), they’re also more likely to serve meat to the next foreign guest that comes to visit, and not prepare anything else.

Dylan

Mar 12 2019 at 2:31pm

True, I’m making some assumptions. I was thinking in a more rich world context where I’ve been invited to BBQs of friends of friends where the only thing available was meat, and it was fairly obvious that what was not consumed was being thrown out. And in that situation, it feels pretty tenuous to connect my demand with increased demand for meat production. Perhaps there is some slight chance that they will ask before automatically serving the next foreigner meat, but I think it is far more likely that they would just consider me a weird aberration and continue on the same way they had before. Perhaps if vegetarians were a higher percentage of the population that would change.

Let me take it a step further though. I had some vegans come over for Thanksgiving one year who were friends of friends. We were having an all vegetarian (but not vegan) dinner which was advertised in advance. There was a mix of vegetarians, vegans, and omnivores in attendance, but these particular vegans would not eat anything that came from our place, even the vegan items, because some of those might have come into contact with animal products at some point. That’s the kind of thing I was thinking of that really doesn’t do anything for the demand for animal products one way or the other, but does make you not a very good dinner guest. These same guests brought their dog, and fed him canned meat, which despite my stance on hypocrisy, still felt kind of annoying.

J. Goard

Mar 13 2019 at 12:43am

It seems likely that even buying some forms of meat wouldn’t contribute much to animals killed. Does anybody know enough about the economics of meat to verify?

I’m thinking that if supplying the valuable cuts creates more than enough scraps for hot dogs and similar highly processed foods, the meat might have near zero value and the cost being almost entirely processing, packaging, shipping and advertising.

Aleksander

Apr 1 2019 at 4:38pm

these particular vegans would not eat anything that came from our place, even the vegan items, because some of those might have come into contact with animal products at some point. That’s the kind of thing I was thinking of that really doesn’t do anything for the demand for animal products one way or the other

I would say the exact opposite. The only thing that would ever make you consider not to use animal products at all in your cooking, is if your friends keep complaining about it and refusing to eat your food.

Of course, it could have the opposite effect in this particular case (like you getting frustrated at your stupid vegan friends and deciding to kill an extra animal in their honor out of spite), but that kind of mechanism just can’t be generalized. Sure, maybe if you go and kill an animal some weird turn of events actually lead to less animals getting killed in the end; but statistically, that’s obviously nonsense. The long-term effect of any action that encourages more animal-killing is likely to be more dead animals.

David Henderson

Mar 11 2019 at 11:22am

On #1, I would say you’re a hypocrite if you, say, sign a letter or lobby the Virginia legislature to maintain or increase spending on higher education. I’m guessing you haven’t done that.

Alan Goldhammer

Mar 11 2019 at 4:24pm

David, Professor Caplan in his book “The Case Against Education” states, that in one class ; ‘…four exams out of forty demonstrate true economic understanding…”

I do not know whether this reflects on Professor Caplan’s ability as a teacher (he never responded to my critique) or that the students just do not seem to care about learning. Either way, this is a disappointing situation. Would not this fill you with despair, if you encountered something similar with your students?

I’ll make no judgements about hypocrisy or hyperbole as one can interpret those in any personal way as was done in the original post. As Walt Kelly wrote in his famed Pogo comic strip many years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” This is perhaps a better topic for discussion.

Philo

Mar 11 2019 at 11:35pm

If Prof. Caplan brought four (out of forty) students to “true economic understanding,” I think he deserves congratulations. He would have no cause for despair: ten percent is pretty good.

Alan Goldhammer

Mar 12 2019 at 8:12am

@Philo – looking at this from another perspective, in what sport is 10% success rate an acceptable score?

robc

Mar 12 2019 at 9:10am

Nascar? Golf?

Win 1 in 10 races or 1 in 10 tournaments and you are pretty darn good.

Mark Z

Mar 11 2019 at 3:32pm

I’m curious what your explanation is for why you’re not a hypocrite? I ask as someone who is also a public employee who thinks there should be far fewer public employees. One might argue (perhaps correctly, I’m not sure) that the supply of public jobs (and therefore the cost to taxpayers) is highly invariant to demand; so, perhaps it’s true that ‘if I didn’t take the job, someone else would.’ Perhaps one would argue that, “I am doing work at least equal to what the taxpayers are paying me, but they probably shouldn’t trust me or my bureaucrat employers to make that decision, so I personally am not robbing the taxpayers and am not doing something wrong; I just advocate for doing away with the opportunity for those who might be inclined to via my position.” But one might respond that one should recuse oneself of even the opportunity to benefit from taxpayer expropriation on the basis that one is not an impartial judge of that fact, much like a judge my be compelled by ethics to recuse himself from a case involving his personal interests even if he confidently believes he would be impartial if he didn’t recuse himself.

Mr. Burns(ie Sanders)

Mar 11 2019 at 8:01pm

Hi Bryan,

I’m not sure you’ve got it right about the hypocrisy of Bernie Sanders. Let me play devil’s advocate. Sanders and his modal supporter do not critique the existence of wealth per se nor even its coexistence with poverty per se. The question is, what are you going to do about poverty? Rich people could willingly give their money to charity, but their are two problems: one is the collective action problem in which any one person can do only a little, but everyone together could do a lot: government taxation is needed for this. The other is that rich people giving to charity are really looking to impose their dominance on poor people, which is obviously bad, even if it doesn’t look that way on the surface as the wealthy few bribe and seduce the poor with goodies. The government, of course, just wants to help and not to dominate—except when the damn Republicans are in control.

Which highlights the other issue: most rich people either got their money through evil means or become corrupted by their money. The evil Koch brothers are representative of the rich, not Bernie Sanders: they got their money by despoiling the earth, and use it to exacerbate inequalities and bar people from their human rights. Bernie Sanders got his money through good and uses it through good, so of course he should get to keep it.

Bernie Sanders is not a hypocrite because calling for government taxation (read: social aid) is fundamentally different from calling for private charity (read: corporate/billionaire dominance), and because the main problem with the wealthy elite is that they do evil things to get money and do evil things with their money, and Bernie Sanders does not.

The arguments I’ve made aren’t right, but they can be held sincerely. Sanders isn’t a hypocrite, just wrong about stuff. (And yes, he’s conveniently wrong in ways that justify his own lavish lifestyle while allowing him to have fun attacking other people, and no, this isn’t a coincidence. But at the end of the day, you convince people by comprehending and refuting their terrible arguments, not by insulting them.)

Philo

Mar 11 2019 at 11:41pm

Recusal is done to maintain the appearance of impartiality; but Prof. Caplan’s views on higher education are not such that his expressing them leads to suspicions of self-serving bias.

Thaomas

Mar 12 2019 at 7:58am

Your argument would be improved by an example of Sen. Sanders’s hyperbole.

Vivian Darkbloom

Mar 12 2019 at 2:45pm

What is the import of being a hypocrite in regard to arguments about public policy? If Caplan (or Sanders or vegetarians) were actually hypocrites in respect to positions they argue for or against, would that have any significance for the validity of their argument or the values they hypocritically espouse? Is tu quoque not an informal logical fallacy? It appears to me that the consequence of being a hypocrite is that it simply undermines the hypocrite’s moral authority and not the position held, per se. The consequences of drawing inappropriate logical conclusions from arguments made by hypocrites (because they are made by hypocrites) seem to be just as detrimental (or worse) than being a hypocrite who makes a good argument.

Warren Platts

Mar 12 2019 at 3:48pm

Libertarians are great hypocrites: they generally, for example, support free trade with a Communist police state that is 1984 on steroids, complete with concentration camps based on Nazi designs.

Mark Z

Mar 12 2019 at 9:05pm

No, libertarians support the freedom of Americans to trade with citizens of communist police states.

And even regarding businesses that trade with states that do bad things, I expect you don’t think it should be a crime to buy or sell something from someone you happen to know is a criminal, as long as you’re not knowingly aiding the commission of a crime.

Mar 13 2019 at 5:51pm

“Libertarians are great hypocrites: they generally, for example, support free trade with a Communist police state that is 1984 on steroids…”

Both Democrats and Republicans supported a trade embargo on Cuba from the very start of Fidel Castro’s reign. In your opinion, how did that work out for the people who lived in Cuba (i.e. all the people in Cuba from 1959 to 2019)? Do you think the trade embargo made their lives better? If so, how?

Niko Davor

Mar 13 2019 at 1:21pm

Caplan’s career at government university isn’t hypocritical. He’s just an individual, he has to play by the rules of society he didn’t he a say in designing. To put it crudely, “hate the game not the player”.

I do level a charge of ideological hypocrisy:

He opposes exclusive admissions and membership of nation states and governments, but supports exclusive admissions and membership of government universities. When discussing Harvard University admissions, Caplan said (with time, I could find a link to the exact quote) that Harvard has the moral right to deny admission and exclude whomever they want, for whatever reason they want, without having to explain, rationalize, or justify their admission criteria to others. That is inconsistent and hypocritical.

If you assert that all humans have a basic moral right to move where ever they want to take a job or purchase housing on the market and also join peer groups and institutions on different soil, the analogous assertion is that all humans have a basic moral right to purchase class enrollment at the government universities they choose and join peer groups on different soil.

If a “citizenist” says that countries are free to limit membership and deny membership to outsiders for any reason without explanation, a “universityist” says that universities can limit membership in the same way.

If a hair dresser or a bus driver has a moral right to move from a low wage country to a high wage country and make much larger income for the same work, then analogously, a student taking calculus or philosophy at a community college has the right to move and take the same class on Harvard soil for dramatically larger value and prestige and dramatically improved social peer group access.

robc

Mar 13 2019 at 2:54pm

Harvard is a private university, not a government school.

Niko Davor

Mar 13 2019 at 4:12pm

Sure, Harvard is nominally considered “private”, but not really. The distinction between a “private” university like Harvard and public officially government institution like GMU is small. They both get lots of financial support, prestige, status, and authority from federal government.

Next, I don’t think even Caplan draws the distinction between nominally private universities like Harvard and public government universities like GMU. Harvard was the specific focus of recent political events, and Caplan said Harvard has the right to exclude whomever they want for whatever reason they want. But I suspect Caplan would make the same judgement about a public government university.

Yaakov

Mar 13 2019 at 5:51pm

In Israel, government officials repeatedly call for discouraging the public from owning and driving cars and encouraging the public to use public transportation. Of course, none of those officials would forgo the use of their car. The general manager of the ministry of transportation tried going in to work one day using public transportation. She said it was an interesting experience but regretfully she cannot pursue it regularly at this stage of her life. I would say they are hypocrites.

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